I just read a news report about a study that found that people who quit smoking put on up to 5kg (11lb) on average in the first year. That’s more than was previously thought. Past studies have already shown that nicotine is an appetite suppressant and possibly also boosts the metabolism. I believe that there are more powerful reasons behind the weight gain though. Whenever we have a habit, whether good or bad, it gives us some reward or payoff that our mind starts to look forward to, otherwise we wouldn’t keep repeating it. That’s the case for the strongest…
Author: Fabian
Fabian
Fabian Colussi is a women's Bikini and Figure competition coach for natural athletes, certified personal trainer and gym instructor, and women's fitness consultant. He also has a background in martial arts, is an NLP Master Practitioner, and has a certification in Hypnotherapy. Fabian is a co-owner and co-founder of Million Dollar Baby Fitness.
There are forces in this world that work to keep us average. When we fall below average, we do our best to work hard to keep up with everyone else, and those that are close to us are there to help us up. But when we try to rise above average, those that are close to us can sometimes try to hold us back so that we remain close to them, and those that envy us try to bring us back down to make themselves feel better. To excel we have to forget about “keeping up” with everyone else. We…
I was reading a book written by an ex-Navy SEAL some time back, and he talked about part of the SEAL induction process which is called Hell Week. As the name suggests, Hell Week is a grueling week of intense and unrelenting physical training, pain and sleep deprivation, meant to test the physical and mental limits of all the candidates to see if they have what it takes. An interesting thing he mentioned was the fact that the athletically gifted ones were usually the ones to give up first, whereas the less athletic ones who were used to digging deep…
Negative beliefs are like a virus, working away behind the scenes and steering our decisions without us even realizing it. So many times we hear women saying, “I can never look like that”, or “that body is unrealistic”. Even in comments on athletes’ social media pages. When you see a photo of an amazing body, it’s real, it’s not a painting! That person exists, so by definition, the body is realistic. The problem is, negative beliefs put a limit on what we can achieve. So what someone is really saying when they make statements like these is, “my beliefs won’t…
The first 4-minute mile was run in 1954 by Roger Bannister. At that time the barrier had created so much mystique that many considered it an impossibility. Once Bannister did it however, John Landy also achieved it the very next month, and over the next few years almost a dozen runners managed to do the same. It’s almost as if it had to be proven to everyone to be possible before they believed it themselves and could finally do it. That’s the power of limiting beliefs, and a great example of how our beliefs control what our body can and…
It’s been almost exactly a year now since the AMA in the United States made the controversial decision to officially classify obesity as a disease, and it seems that experts are still in disagreement about whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. In fact, many are against the decision simply because there still isn’t any clear-cut, measurable definition of what obesity is precisely. When I first heard about the decision I must admit I was pretty outraged. Even though a percentage of obese people do have underlying physiological factors behind their condition, the fact of the matter is…
Below is an essay which was written by Henry Rollins, a singer/songwriter, spoken word artist, writer, publisher, actor and comedian, and published in Details magazine in 1994. In it he talks about his growing up as a weak child and developing into emotionally and physically strong and confident man through weight training. It’s a very powerful piece that’s filled with wisdom and insight, and is an invaluable read for anyone who has, is currently, or wishes to, reinvent themselves by getting into shape. The essay is like a treasure chest filled with golden quotes that never get old. Read it…
What can the hyena teach us about fitness? Well, read on and you’ll see . . . We’ve all heard the expression “use it or lose it” in reference to our body. It means if you don’t stay active, your health will disappear, and if you don’t work a little, your muscles will disappear. Common sense stuff! But the fact is, “use it or lose it” applies to your mind as well. Since back in the 1960s, tests have been done on people and animals that show that our brain is “plastic”. No, it’s not made of plastic, but is…
The next time you’re facing a problem or a challenge in your life, don’t ask yourself “how can I solve or overcome this?” Instead, ask yourself “how can I use this to my advantage?” Hidden inside each challenge is an opportunity for something positive, that’s almost always bigger in size than the problem itself, and often much bigger. So if you get through a challenge and afterwards your life continues exactly as normal, it means you’ve wasted the opportunity. This is why they say you fail your way to success. If you use every failure as an opportunity to grow…
Think about a time you bought a new car, bike, boat or house and how you felt about it when you first saw it. You probably fell in love with it and thought it was absolutely perfect, and you were so excited to buy it. Then, after owning it for a while, slowly over time the novelty wears off and it wasn’t such a big deal anymore. If it was pre-loved when you bought it, maybe you even discovered a few little problems or imperfections that you didn’t notice at first. So over time reality paints a not-so-perfect picture of…
When choosing carbs for your diet, GI is important but not as important as quality. The best carbs are natural, unprocessed carbs, and you should focus mostly on the complex variety. GI is only a secondary consideration. If you relied purely on GI for choosing your carbs, you would choose Coca Cola (GI 63) over watermelon (GI 72) or a Mars Bar (GI 68) over a baked potato (GI 85). The GI of a carb means less in the real world than you think. GI values of carbs are measured by test subjects eating the carb on it’s own, on…
I read an interesting blog post recently by Dr AnnMaria DeMars, mother of UFC champion Ronda Rowsey, where she basically defended the actions of her daughter following her win over Miesha Tate at UFC 168 in December of last year. Following the fight, Ronda refused to shake Miesha’s hand, in what many people saw as a classless act of poor sportsmanship. It incited widespread booing by the crowd in attendance, so much so that it almost drowned out Ronda’s post-fight interview in the Octagon, and later went on to be the subject of ongoing discussion in the media and on…
I’m still shaking my head hours after having read this article! Planet Fitness, one of the fastest-growing gym companies in the US, recently removed squat racks from one of its gyms because a customer complained that it was “too intimidating”. Wow! Just wow!! This is a gym that offers its clients free pizza, bagels and tanning beds – to cater for, as this article puts it, “the casual gym goer who might be turned off by gyms being a little too ‘fitness oriented’.” Wow again. Seriously, what hope does humanity have of overcoming the obesity epidemic when we have celebrity…
A friend of mine this morning mentioned a magazine ad she saw promoting a new “breakthrough” weight loss product that used “metabolic conditioning”. It was supposedly so scientifically advanced that if you used it and didn’t lose at least 5kg (11lb) in the first week without any strenuous exercise, you get your money back. I immediately knew the person behind it, he was running TV ads recently claiming that on average users of his program lost 6kg (13.2lb) in the first week. This is clearly absurd. And I’m ashamed to say that he is a quite highly-regarded trainer in Australia.…
Knowing which weight loss foods to build your diet around and which to avoid is a vital key to your weight loss success. The best weight loss foods can really accelerate your progress, while the worst can be total roadblocks. The problem is however, there’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding that surrounds this subject. Many sub-standard foods are often embraced by women who believe them to be healthy. Many fantastic foods are often neglected because their benefits aren’t really properly understood. And to cap it all off, there are hundreds of supposedly healthy and “diet-friendly” foods out there that…
Low Fat Diet Plans are a strange animal in that they’re very much misunderstood by the majority of people. Not just in terms of what to eat and what not to eat, but also in terms of exactly what they are. Of course it doesn’t help that different individuals and organizations often have different definitions of what constitutes a Low Fat Diet Plan. So the first thing we need to do is define exactly what we mean by Low Fat and High Fat, so that we’re all on the same page. Makes sense? What Do We Mean By Low Fat?…
Fred Ettish is a Mixed Martial Arts fighter who competed in the second ever Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) tournament and subsequently became famous for all the wrong reasons. Attending the event as an alternate, or back-up fighter, in case any of the scheduled fighters were injured during the course of the tournament and unable to continue, Fred had flown from his home in Minnesota to Denver, without any guarantee that he’d actually get to fight. The UFC was a brand new concept back then, it was designed to prove which fighting style or martial art was truly the best and…
Did you know that the 5 people you surround yourself with the most are the ones that influence your life the most? And of course, that includes your health and fitness. So take a look at the people close to you and you will see yourself, or who you’re slowly becoming. Are they positive, goal-oriented, and hard-working people, or are they negative people who whine and make excuses all the time? What picture is this painting for you? Sometimes these people are family or people you love, so it’s not realistic to cut them out of your life, but you…
High fat foods are something that everyone who wants to lose weight naturally tries to steer clear of. But is it really necessary? Could avoiding high fat foods actually be bad for you? Well, there’s one thing that can definitely be said about these foods, and that’s that they’re high in calories. So they definitely need to be eaten in moderation, that’s for sure. But as for avoiding them altogether, that’s just not necessary. In fact, it’s strongly recommended that you don’t. You see, certain high fat foods actually provide you with some very important and healthy nutrients. Yes, even…
Vegetarian diet plans can provide many benefits for health and weight loss, but they can also lead to various deficiencies if they’re not carefully planned. On the plus side, by adopting the vegetarian lifestyle you avoid all the potential pitfalls inherent in many animal food products. But on the downside, you also need to find suitable alternatives for the important, beneficial nutrients that animal products bring to your diet. What Are Vegetarian Diet Plans? First of all, it’s important to understand that vegetarian diet plans come in all shapes and sizes. There actually aren’t any hard and fast rules as…
The primary role of cardio exercise on a weight loss program is as fat burning exercise. Its job is to burn up as many calories for you as possible. After all, every 7,700 calories burned is about one kilo of body fat gone! Now, I’m sure you’ve heard the term many times before, but what exactly is cardio exercise? Well, cardio exercise, as the name suggests, is simply any exercise whose main aim is to target your cardiovascular fitness – meaning your heart, lungs and blood circulation. In other words, it gets your heart pumping. But like most things, cardio…
Over the past 15 years or so High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT, has truly become the holy grail of fat burning exercise. This super-effective exercise protocol can get you a lot leaner, a lot faster, spending a lot less time exercising. Up until recently it was believed that the best way to burn off body fat was through prolonged, low intensity exercise such as jogging, skipping, aerobics classes, and so on. But all that has since changed. Most of the principles of High Intensity Interval Training come from the work of Dr. Izumi Tabata from the National Institute of…